Ask artist/musician Llyn Foulkes to play his Tom Waits cover song and he'll tell you he was performing like Tom Waits before Waits was on the music scene. An Angeleno since 1956, along with his Tom Waits ditty “Chocolate Jesus,” much of the Brewery Art Colony dweller's songs serve as a love letter to our smog-ridden city. Foulkes, perhaps best known for his works of art that decorate walls of the likes of MOCA and the Getty, is a one-man band. He has created a near-mythological musical machine made up of dozens of instruments he's salvaged from auto swap meets or household objects, along with bells he's had since he was 11. Bicycle horns, cowbells, an electric bass, drums, xylophone keys and an empty water jug are among the parts, some homemade, that make up his wondrous instrument. Foulkes has been performing for nearly a decade at the Brewery's biannual Art Walk. When he's not working on his upcoming album, you can see him perform at what he calls the Church of Art on the last Tuesday of every month. Foulkes' songs are as eclectic as his machine; along with the Tom Waits–style blues, he performs circus tunes, rhumba, jazz and other originals. Expect to be anointed with whimsy. 2100 N. Main St., dwntwn.; llynfoulkes.com.

—Sophia Kercher

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